Human industrialized society that has mature around the automobile has long had access to long range and near instantaneous restoring of full range capabilities.
To put that in more simple and concrete terms the average gasoline vehicle travels about 300-350 miles on a tank of fuel (about 5-7 hours) then can completely refuel from 0 range to 100% range in about 3 minutes at any commodity fuel station, or they can carry extra fuel in containers for very long or rural trips.

Until electric vehicles use batteries that are either: universal, interchangeable and can be swapped out in 5 minutes or they care capable of simply accepting a full charge in place in less than about 10 minutes then purely electric vehicles are doomed to be a niche market in modern society. At least until petrol fuel prices rise to make the hassles of recharging more tolerable.

We could also eliminate the charrging/range issue if people would give up the notion they need to own their own cars. IF there were simply a car club/service that you would use a car until the battery was close to depleted then drop it off at a charging center and step in to a new one, it would resolve the range issue as well. I don't see people, at least in the US, doing that any time soon.

So I'll end this the way I end all posts about electric and hybrid vehicles: switch to diesel electric instead of gasoline electric and you'll be on to something. Diesel-electric is the standard for every other transportation mode and use that isn't pure petrol or nuclear: ship, submarine, train, mining, etc. The efficiency if diesel engines is highly attuned to the constant-rate engine speed that diesel electric requires and wold probably increase hybrid vehicle range and efficiency by 2-3x.

If you have 1 apple and no people then no division takes place. The answer is not 0 slices it's "no process completed". The answer is not "no one gets the apple" because there aren't any "ones" in the system to not get the apple, there is no solution other than to scream.
The problem is you don't understand how to properly express the real world in mathematical or algorithmic terms.

The OP said he knew about literal string search and didn't want that, he wants hits in line with his context. "They try very hard to present me with what they think I'm searching for instead of what I'm actually searching for."
So he doesn't want what they think he wants and he doesn't want "everything". How does he suppose the search engine will know what he wants?

You want a search engine that knows what you meant by "2000s" and doesn't just return simple string matches, but you don't want that same engine to "think" for you. How would that look to you for any arbitrary search?
How is the search engine supposed to have any context of what you want without more information?

"Peanut butter" What do you want back, places that make it, sell it, grow the peanuts, ship it, recipes, allergies, how to make it stick to people's skin, using it to get pills down your dog's throat? Is there band called peanut butter, an album, song, artist, patinting, place?

There's no "simple" search you could use that wound't require the search engine to "think" for you. A full an complete set of search parameters is needed to get to what YOU want.

Why is it the "cranks" are all asking for scientific study or proof and the "sane" ones are all saying "trust we know it works, because we know" and quoting each other in support?

Do you know that for that $63,000 a year you could provide fluoride rinse or tablets to every at-risk kid in a population about 3x the size served by municipal water fluoridation? The rinses and tables have been studied and proven effective and they all use sodium fluoride.

As with any public issue there are conspiracy theorists out there. In this particular case when you start digging you find many reasons to ban fluordation of water supplies an almost 0 evidence to support it, beyond the myths you've been told since a child.

Fluoride in water always sounds good to people who want "better smiles" but it's 99% a waste of the money spent:

1. The version of fluoride they put in the water (Hexafluorosilicic acid) is not shown to help with dental decay issues. Sodium Fluoride is the chemical the ADA studies and recommends for toothpaste and dental products.

2. Hexafluorosilicic acid is a product manufactured from industrial waste in the aluminum industry and is considered a toxic substance. If industry hadn't conned municipalities in to putting it in the water supply as a "fluoride source" it would cost them a good chunk of change to dispose of the stuff. (Look up ALCOA and fluoride).

3. Consumption of unfiltered tap water, I'd say, is just about zero. I know no-one that drinks any substantive quantity of tap water that the fluoride content in it would ever have any clinical effect. Almost any filter designed to remove impurities will remove the fluoride from tap water.

4. Even if people were drinking only tap water, over 95% of the water used in an average municipality is very consumed by any living thing. It washes cars, waters lawns, bathes people, flushes toilets, cools industrial equipment, etc.

5. When I had this discussion with my town a few years ago asking them to provide numbers they told my it cost $63,000 a year in product and personnel to run the fluoridation system for 29.5 million gallons of potable water. That sounds like very little, .2 cents ($.002) per thousand gallons or an average of about $.30 per family per month. Sure when you make the numbers small it doesn't look like much, but think about what $63,000 a year gets if directed an other programs in a town. Another teacher or two? Extended library hours on the weekends? A new after school program?

6. No-one, I mean I searched hard, has studied the rate of change in a community pre and post fluoridation of tap water since an initial study of Grand Rapids and Muskegon in 1945. A study that was ended prematurely but touted as a success anyway despite its very unscientific lack of compensating for outside factors not related to the study itself and the "control" changing programs during the study.

7. The Grand Rapids "study" was based upon Sodium Fluoride, which again is not what we put in the water today. So even if the result was positive the hexafluorosilicic acid used today has never been studied for prevention of tooth decay in municipal water supplies and is a very different chemical compound just like Carbon Monoxide and Carbon Dioxide are very different chemicals. Search for

8. There is no version of any type of fluoride that is indicated by the FDA for the prevention of tooth decay. The municipal water companies are adding an non-FDA approved and unregulated drug to our water supply. The other substance added to water supplies (chlorine to be simple) is approved by the FDA for water and food sanitation.

As you can see, there is simply no supporting truth to the argument that fluoride in municipal water prevents tooth decay. It does cost a significant amount of money, and almost no-one drinks the fluoridated water anyway.

Do your own research. You will come to the same conclusion: municipal water fluoridation is based on lies, it's a waste of money, it doesn't work and it may actually cause harm to public health.

So the consumers love their team so much they always want to watch the team play. They just don't want to pay for tickets or pay for the TV channel to watch.
Maybe it is time for the major league sports teams to just give in and make watching their games completely free and supported by advertising. I mean we're pretty far along already. Adverts on the screen all the time, swooshing adverts on the screen intermittently, adverts between plays, commercials, logos all over the field, etc.
Let's just for for the gusto... "Frito Lay presents the snapping the ball the quarterback, as he fades back in the team's signature Cadillac move. He Snickers tosses the ball to the wide receiver who's catch is sponsored by Taco Bell and runs to the Minute Maid mid-field where he's taken down by Office Max's linebacker.

Look.. the teams in cities and states have 0 to do with the city or state any more, the players are from all over the world, training camps are in another part of the county and they'd relocate for a deal that made them 2% more money. The stadiums are owned by the team and they sell the naming rights to the highest bidder.
Just go full out commercial with this stupid professional games stuff.

Do you also "root" your car? I mean it has lots of computer controllers that you should have access to since you won the thing, right?

We need to stop finding different mechanisms to all vote on one day and instead allow in-person voting over a longer period, such as a calendar week.

Surprise. Surprise. Surprise.

GCC is open source. If Linus is such a great expert on the issues with it then why isn't he fixing them? Probably because he doesn't have the skills.
If you don't have the skills to create a compiler or fix a broken one then you have no valid basis for complaining so loudly about the defect in the one you use.

Since Linus has such a great operating system he should have his own compiler so why's he complaining? Oh, that's right, 95% of what we call an operating system has noting to do with Linux. He was only able to create his kernel because gcc and the GNU project in general had already built all the tools he needed to use and stand on.

When Linus writes all the subordinate tools, libraries and programs needed for an operating system, then I'll accept his opinion on the quality of any of that.

NASA to Congress: We want to build a launch system that will be the single most important component in the US presence in space for the nest several generations. We need $20B for it from planning to first launch.
Congress to NASA: Screw that, you get $12B.
NASA to Congress: We can almost do it with $12B, we need an additional $400M
Congress to NASA: Justify the additional $$

Military to Congress: We need $10B to build a new strike fighter that no-one really wants.
Congress to Military: Here ya go
Military to Congress: Oops. We've crashed a bunch of prototypes, and still have major design flaws and systems failures. Another $10B should get us on track.
Congress to Military: Here ya go
Military to Congress: Supplier problems, we need another $10B
Congress to Military: Here ya go

Why are we so damned willing to spend money to kill people more efficiently and not to do science that positively impacts all our lives every day?

From SWA's web site: http://www.southwest.com/html/...

Do families get to preboard?
An adult traveling with a child four years old or younger may board during Family Boarding, which occurs after the "A" group has boarded and before the "B" group begins boarding. However, those Customers holding an "A" boarding pass should still board with the "A" boarding group.
**he fails this clause as his children are stated to be 6 and 9

Can groups assigned to different boarding positions board together?
Yes. However, in order to maintain the integrity of the boarding process, we ask that earlier boarding positions board with the later positions. For example, if a passenger is assigned position A16 and wants to board with a passenger assigned position A45, the passenger holding the A16 boarding pass should board with the A45 passenger.
The attendant correctly applied this clause and the customer disliked the enforcement of the rule solely because another agent had offered and exception. This is why companies so often state "no exceptions". Once you grant an exception you make the next employee look like a jerk for properly applying the rules.

Just because you chose to breed doesn't mean you get to just do whatever you want. We have rules. Following them, even when they don't get you what you want, is probably the best parenting you could do. This guy tried to show his kids he was special and didn't need to follow the rules. He'll never explain THAT to them, I'm sure.

That said the response of the attendant pulling him off the plane was unwarranted and stupid. She's created a PR headache, cost the airline money (I'm sure they'll give him vouchers), and probably delayed the flight as they had to account for all his luggage and possessions before they could allow pushback.